July 10-12

Welcome back Nana and Baba! They got home late on the 9th after everyone had gone to bed, WITH the cousins in tow! So the kids woke up to grandparents AND Gabriella and Zachary. Talk about pandemonium…. But even more importantly for yours truly – I had PLANS!!! Fun plans… that included babies, Korean food (a first for me!) and shopping! Bree is originally from Korea (born there) but adopted and raised here, so it was so exciting to go to a restaurant her parents took her to to better understand a portion of her previous culture. The food was AMAZING! And FILLING!

After eating it was time to go to Mall of America and shop around… which ended in myself buying some rather ADORABLE and decadent (for me) retro shoes… I could not resist and spent more on one pair than I have in ages (not hard to do as I usually limit myself to as far under 20.00 as I can!).

Walking the mall with Bree and Lily was great fun… we shopped and then headed over to their place to relax until we could avoid the rush hour traffic.

Definitely a day well spent… Thursday had us down to one cousin. Gabriella had a friend contact her the day before and had left to join them so we just had Zachary here. So the kids played the morning away.

In the afternoon we had time outside in the sun. That playset is a definite boon to our peace keeping.

We ended our week off with a lovely walk… just us 6 enjoying the sunshine and flowers. It was hot and we did not come across any garage sales (just one misleading sign) but I think we did good.

The twins worked with pastels to fill the time. I love when they try harder mediums! And together no less!

The littles had a blast watching Dora. It is fun to see Echo trying to answer the questions and follow along!

At the hottest point of the day I sat down to work on our advance stuff. Each of the 4 kids has a summer folder now with pages that they can mostly do on their own with a 5th folder of some games. I really need more cardstock and laminating sheets! Can you ever really have enough?

Ken took a shorter day of work so that the kids could have a full on water fight with him!

And then he and Baba FINISHED the swingset! Two swings and a teeter totter type one that the twins are too heavy for. The kids are over the moon with the completion.

What else is there to do with a free Daddy but to end with a boardgame??

Oh and Emanuel graced us with some dinosaur themed sidewalk art.

I don’t think we had any complaints about our day really!!!